About Asian Encounters

Asian Encounters is a social enterprise based on a social network. Our objective is to promote pro-poor Community Based Tourism (CBT) through social networking between and among travellers in Asia and the villagers they wish to meet with. We call this e-CBT. Community Based Tourism (CBT) is a form of tourism that is operated by the community itself, rather than by outside interests. It is sometimes called village tourism, rural tourism or homestay. Its purpose is to create income-generating opportunities for poor people in Asia, mostly women.

CBT provides travellers with authentic encounters with lifestyles and cultures that are probably very different from their own. By staying in a village, as a guest of one of the residents, visitors experience the culture and daily lifestyle of their hosts; participating in their daily activities or enjoying the activities that the villagers have made available for them. Each location is unique and it provides experiences that cannot be obtained in packaged tours. Think of it as fair trade in tourism because CBT provides a larger proportion of tourism revenues to the residents of the destination than any other form of tourism.

The web sites of our partner communities that are featured here describe the travel experiences offered by each of them. Travellers who will most appreciate what CBT has to offer are usually quite experienced and eager to learn from their encounters with people of different cultures. They are concerned about world poverty in general and also about the damage that mass tourism can do to the environment. They appreciate authenticity and the opportunities from learning that new experiences offer. Young backpackers often fall into this category, but it also includes older people with similar leanings. If you are addicted to luxury, this is not for you. However, we don't mind if you mix your travels between 5-star resorts and village homestays!

Community Based Tourism is a way of generating incomes for poor people . Asian Encounters is neither travel agent nor tour operator. We specialize in empowering poor communities with Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to help them promote local tourism that is sensitive to the needs of the community, its culture and its environment. We call this e-Community Based Tourism, or e-CBT. There are increasing numbers of discerning travellers discovering the learning experiences that are available from close encounters with local people and the rural environment in which they live.

The list of our partner communities is growing. Governments and development agencies are slowly beginning to understand the opportunities that exist for alleviating poverty through tourism. Unfortunately, most of the tourism industry does not consider poverty reduction to be any of its business. If there's no money in it for the tourism operators, they won't make sigificant efforts to promote pro-poor initiatives like community-based tourism. Accordingly, new forms of organisation and partnership are required to realise the potential that tourism has for reducing poverty. That's where Asian Encounters steps in; providing the most appropriate marketing channel for such efforts - on the internet - because that's where the target market can be found.